Engine Punk

Ergonomics is the study of man, or individual men, in the working environment. The term is derived from the Greek "ergon" for work (and nothing to do with Jason and the Argonauts) and "nomos" which is law and nothing to do with "gnomic" remarks. Ergonomics is now a recognised profession and one of its pioneers was Henry Dreyfuss, who was one of the first superstar industrial designers. His most famous work was not John Deere tractors or the streamlined locomotives he designed for the "Twentieth Century Limited". It was a text book entitled The Measure of Man and this became staple reading for students, like me, of industrial design. The Measure of Man obviously refers just as equally to female women of the opposite persuasion but to publish a seprate book entitled The Measure of Women would probably attract the wrong sort of readership - even though it would have been much more interesting to a load of teenage predominantly male industrial de...

Tempted? It was during a rather ribald discussion with some of my motor cycling friends that the question arose -- what is the motorcycling equivalent of an Austin Allegro? My Austin Allegro is a particularly nice example but that doesn't stop them taking the piss out of it. I know that it is not one of the world's greatest cars and some people voted these chubby little cars the worst ones of all time but I like to point out that much of the Allegro's vital organs are shared with the Mini, which, at about the same time, was voted the greatest car of all time. It seems odd to me that two cars with the same engine, gearbox and the clutch from the same manufacturer, and with suspension systems that follow the same damperless and space saving concept, could be both the best and the worst between them. But, as we say in Cornwall, "There it is and there you are." And as some deeply philosophical type might also say, "Less is more." After a great deal of...

The title sounds a bit of an "Oh, matron!" in retrospect but it's true - my old laptop has been resurrected, leaving me feeling like a self-satisfied Dr Frankenstein. And without having created any monsters, either - for the time being at any rate. I'm pretty pig-headed and although my laptop is nearly superfluous, I decided to have another go at it. The problem was the very limited time in which the keyboard or touch pad would respond. If the McAfee logo, or a message saying that a Java update was available, came up I was stuffed. The only thing to do then was to switch the power off and let the FAT do its stuff and have another race against time. After a less than promising start, I managed to get a message saying that Open Office was opening up automatically and at more than one application at a time, too. So I deleted Open Office and bought myself some extra time in which I was able to delete McAfee and Java, too. The result of this, however, was a complet...

It was a dark and stormy night at The Borough Arms on the road between Wadebridge and Bodmin. There were precious few travellers on the roads that evening and we had the usually popular hostelry pretty much to ourselves. There was just me and my friends and fellow members of the Imp Club, John and Sarah Doughty. Outside, the rain beat at the windows, the wind moaned in the chimney and the pub sign rattled on its chains but inside it was warm and welcoming. The fires were lit and after our meal we pulled up the armchairs in a semi-circle and gathered round the hearth. And, as might only be expected on a night such as this, talk soon turned to the subject of the supernatural. I happened to remark that I had never heard of a car being haunted. There have been ghost trains and phantom trucks and cars, I said, and I had even heard of a headless cyclist. But while accounts of ghostly cars have often been told, I had never heard of a real car being haunted as a house or a ship might be....

Not such a welcome sight as an ambulance for any refusenik, this police van has made it to Blighty (Photo: Sam Glover) I've just heard from Sam Glover of Practical Classic magazine. Not only did he used to own two UAZ-452s, but he has personal experience of them in Mongolia. He had this ambulance and the brown pickup. Both of them are RHD and he says the conversion from LHD was done over here and was somewhat crudely executed. They were imported around 1979-1980, which corresponds with the time I was doing my Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme expedition and wondering why Russian 4x4s were suddenly everywhere. (What did you do in the Cold War, Daddy? I went camping.) "Off-hand, I can't really remember the story of the UK importer," said Sam. "I seem to remember our archivist - one-man library Tony Turner - spinning me the full yarn in a pub, but unfortunately it was towards the end of a salubrious evening. I keep intending to button-hole him on the subject agai...

Pete Low dropped by the other day on his Armstrong on MT500 and as you can see from the photographs he's developed a few refinements for this bike since it was first dubbed a Vintage Thing. The mechanical specification remains the same but he's added a bigger 22 litre tank from a Honda XL500 and a low level Acerbis front mudguard. He's also invested in a pair of Oxford heated handlebar grips, since Pete rides his bike all year round, unlike some of us - like me, for instance - who freely admit to be fair weather riders. The new headlamp unit is an Acerbis Cyclops, which can take HID (High Intensity Discharge) bulbs. Sort of. Acerbis make quite a few different types, but the Cyclops is the only one Pete’s seen that is "E marked" & street legal. An interesting discovery has been, that Acerbis make a clear plastic shield that is tailor made, covering both main & dip to guard against breakage. Somewhere between Essex and Cornwall he inexplicably suffere...

The UAZ-452 became the UAZ-22069 Mentioning the UAZ-452 on this blog has prompted some responses but nothing concrete enough to explain how they arrived on Dartmoor. Peter Tuthill, of Motormind fame, has a brochure for one in English. He's promised to get me a facsimile copy and seems to recall that someone in Birmingham was importing them. Meanwhile, my mate Matt, who is a Tavistock boy born and bred and is an off road enthusiast, also remembers these little Russian 4x4's trundling over the moorland. He seems to have a vague recollection of having a ride in one but as this is something like 30 years ago it remains just a vague recollection. Personally I prefer the look of the earlier UAZ-450 While looking for something else, Matt succeeded where I have not by digging up with his folding sand shovel other references to the UAZ-452 on the Internet. On Horizons Unlimited , “The Website Motorcyclists Trust”, someone was asking the question, are these little 4x4 is an...